>>52900858>being gayThey held hands but handholding was never regarded as something romantic in the show, otherwise we can start saying that "Ash is actually gay for Brock".
In order for there to be some actual argument for the Serena x May ship, you need to have at least a kiss/a confession/a hug. May's seiyuu is unavailable so she has to have silent screentime with zero dialogue but we can work around that like this -
Like, if there was a scene like this:
"Serena looks at May with starry eyes and says:
-I will always treasure the day we met-
May nods with a sincerely happy smile and stretches out to Serena for an embrace.
And Serena hugs May as they both blush"
Now THAT would be solid ground for an actual ship.
What we saw in the anime is not even worth discussing, literally 5 seconds of generic ashnime COTD peanut gallery interactions. Like there's literally no actual content to have a debate on.
If you want actual evidence of yuri shipping in the ashnime, take a look at Dawn x Cynthia.
Dawn LITERALLY lived at Cynthia's private villa in the Unova region, just the two of them, Cynthia's lustful expression tells us enough to assume sexual activity between them. So like you at least have some evidence in the story to justify a yuri theory of Dawn and Cynthia having sex.
Japan has it's own visual language for homosexual stuff, if OLM wanted to legit tease May x Serena, they'd have Serena spin May in a waltz twirl with animated lily flowers spinning in an improvised 3-second anime background.
In Japan the word "yuri" (百合) has two meanings: "the lily flower" and "lesbians".
May appears on screen for like literally 5 seconds and doesn't even talk or move for that matter.
Contestshipping still canon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgPmxcFzw98